Career, Babies and Marriage

The internet is somewhat blowing up over this recent article by the controversial Penelope Trunk.

She tells the world to get pregnant at 25 if you want a high-powererd career.

Well, I happen to be 25, pregnant and desiring of a high-powered career. I just had my 25th birthday, and I am in my mid-twenties now. I'm very pregnant, and I see myself as the director of some department on a university or college campus in my forties.

Clearly, I had to read this article.

Here are some highlights:
I loved that women are coming forward to say that it is literally impossible to have a high-powered career while you have young kids, if you want to be involved in your kids’ lives. The best thing older women can do for younger women right now is to tell the truth. It’s hard to tell the truth because if you are trying to do the high-powered job and the kids, you will kill your career by admitting that it’s impossible.

But here’s the truth for women: You should not plan your life so that you work until you’re 30 and then have kids, and also have a huge career. Because you will be taking care of kids during the very time when all the men you worked with are working harder and longer hours than ever before. Men who have kids are in a great position to climb the ladder. They have wives at home. Women cannot go full speed ahead until the kids are grown up. Slaughter has great evidence for this. But you should be able just to look around and see that this truth. My favorite example: All the male Supreme Court Justices have families. Two of the three women do not. And the one who does, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, did not start her career until her kids were grown.

Slaughter lays out a great plan. It’s tucked into the article, among a lot of other calls to action. But she says, if you want to have a huge career, have kids when you are 25 so your kids will be grown when you are 45, because there will still be time to have a huge career.

This also means women will need to start dating men who are older than they are. This also seems like a good idea. Men, of course, love younger women. But more than that, women who are in their twenties are in their prime in terms of self-confidence. They are physically very desirable, and they are doing better at work than men. Men, on the other hand, are at their nadir of self-confidence in their twenties. They are not making money, which is something that is very valuable on the dating scene. And they are not doing as well as women at work. Men look way better in their 30s when the women have left the workplace and the men have a more solid grip on their earning power.

So look. Here’s my first post directed solely at Generation Z women: Spend the years from age 20-25 focused on getting married. There is no evidence that doing well in school during that period of your life will get you worthwhile benefits. There is no evidence that waiting longer than 25 makes a better marriage. And there is not evidence that women who do a great job early in their career can bank on that later in their career. There is evidence, though, that women who focus on marriage have better marriages. There is evidence that women who have kids earlier have healthier kids, and there is evidence, now, that women who have grown children by age 45 do better at getting to the top in the workforce than all other women with kids.

You can bet I'm forwarding this article to my two (younger) sisters.

Woa. Choosy Me.

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
William James



I am on the verge of change. What sort of change is up to me.

I know I'm not happy where I'm at. Things are not great in the library at the moment, and there are no indications that this will change in the next year or two. I know I will be (even if just slightly) happier doing something besides what I'm doing. I have made moves to give myself choices, thinking that of all the options, the "right" choice would be obvious.

Here I am, teetering between Plan A (graduate school) and Plan B (a better paying, more challenging job). Each path is a good one, and I suppose it is almost harder than choosing between two evils. I cannot choose "wrong," I can only choose "better."

How am I to choose? If I weigh these financially, it's a tough call. Obviously, Plan B will give me more money immediately, but Plan A may ensure higher pay in the long term. If I weigh the two emotionally, I'm not going to be accurate as I have not done either of these tracks. Each are similar to other adventures (undergraduate and admissions job), but until I am in the position, I will be unable to evaluate which is better for me emotionally. If I weigh these two options in terms of what will be challenging, I know that both of them will be - but in different ways.

I'm ready for a change. I just need to choose what sort of change I need. Do I need a rejuvenating academic adventure? Do I need a more intense job? This is my town for the time being; I need to find something and make it work. And soon.

My graduate school classes begin on my birthday, Monday, June 6. I hope to have decided before that date. Wouldn't that be a great birthday present? Clarity of mind, certainty in my choice, hopeful anticipation of change.

Life

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
Albert Ellis

The Formal Decision To Not Have Babies

We always told our friend Jason that if we got pregnant, he should know it was an accident and that we wouldn't be happy, even if we faked it for everyone we knew. Horrible, I know, but it's true. Like many women I know, I was an adamant Pill popper as means to prevent pregnancy. I pick up my prescription at Target for $10, set my daily phone alarm for 9:30 and swallow the hormones each evening. I took the Pill for five years. It was cheap, easy to acquire and effective.

This Thursday, I laid on the metal bed, feet in stirups that were covered in oven mitts and my doctor double checking how deep my cervix was. Seconds later, I felt a horrible sharp pain deep inside me, like a tiny fairy had somehow gotten inside my vagina with a humongous sword and decided to stab my lady part. I'm not sure if it hurt so bad because I'm used to my vagina feeling pleasure or if because I haven't had children and my cervix is too tight or if because I'm a baby, but I jumped right off that table, yelping and crying. It hurt so bad that I felt dizzy and before I could alert the doctor, I fainted. When I awoke, there was no more pain and I smiled, a little embarrassed but mostly because I knew that with this IUD, I wouldn't be getting pregnant until I wanted to be getting pregnant.

For my ladies, I chose the Paraguard option, a copper t-shaped little thing, for the lack of hormones and because a writer from The Frisky documented her insertion and her (great) experience. And as of that afternoon, I am unable to get pregnant until the doctor removes it. It lasts for twelve years, but you can take it out at any time. My total out of pocket cost: $125 and insurance took care of the rest ($600). The afternoon following the insertion was pretty bad, sharp cramping and bouts of pain so bad that I cried. I recommend a movie, lots of iBuprofen and getting to bed early.

But that's all the bad things I can say. I woke up the morning after the insertion feeling great. So great actually that I spent 30 minutes doing my hair and did something funky with my makeup. I felt sexy all day and wanted to bone as soon as my man got home. That's a big thing: I'm horny all the time now. I was pretty horny before, but now I'm unstoppable. It's also great because you don't have to remember to do anything! No more phone alarms, no more I-hope-I'm-not-pregnant months. Hassle free!

The most important good thing: When my man and I decide that we want to have children, we will remove the IUD and start trying to procreate. I love this part, partially because I'm a planner but mostly because I want to bring a child into the world when it's optimal. Imagine whatever that is for you. For me, I want to be living closer to family, I want to have travelled to Europe, I want to have a sweet house, I want to be older, wiser, stronger. Now is not a good time, and the next bunch of years will also not be good. Kids never go away. I still bother my parents and I bet you still bother yours.

We're still newlyweds, and we have big plans for the next few years - and they don't involve children. And when we want our plans to involve children, we'll make a formal decision to remove the IUD and have them. So there. Betcha weren't expecting that.

**Ladies, if you have questions about IUDs, ask in the comments or shoot me an email AlyssaMBuckley at gmail dot com.